WhatsApp Co-Founder to Quit Facebook

Jan Koum, WhatsApp co-founder, on Monday said that he would be quitting from Facebook. Facebook bought WhatsApp four years ago for $ 19 billion.

Koum said on his Facebook page that he wanted to take time off for collecting air-cooled Porsches, working on cars and playing ultimate Frisbee.

According to a US media report a disagreement with Facebook over user data privacy could also have been a factor in Koum,s decision to quit Facebook.

“It’s been almost a decade since Brian (Acton) and I started WhatsApp, and it’s been an amazing journey with some of the best people,” Koum said in the post.

“But it is time for me to move on.”

Acton left Facebook last year to start a nonprofit.

WhatsApp boasts more than 1.2 billion users worldwide.

In a reply to Koum’s post, Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said he would miss working closely with the WhatsApp co-founder.

“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done to help connect the world, and for everything you’ve taught me, including about encryption and its ability to take power from centralized systems and put it back in people’s hands,” Zuckerberg said in his written reply.

“Those values will always be at the heart of WhatsApp.”

WhatsApp In a new move raised the minimum age for users in the European Union to 16 years and is preparing for new privacy laws to be put into place from next month.

For countries outside of EU, the minimum age was still 13 years.

With the recent data leak debacle, Facebook has pledged that it will change how it handles private data to comply with the forthcoming law change.

But unlike WhatsApp, which will only apply the new law to its European users, Facebook plans on rolling out changes for its users worldwide.

Zuckerberg has spent most of the past month on the fallout from revelations on the hijacking of personal data by the political firm, seeking to assuage fears that the California-based internet colossus can safeguard privacy while making money by targeting ads based on what people share about themselves.